`My Parkdale is gone`: how gentrification reached the one place that seemed immune
(The Guardian Canada)

Long an outlier in Toronto´s feverish property wars, Parkdale´s deep-seated problems were being turned around by its Tibetan community - but then the huge global real estate firms rolled inBy now, Michael Nguyen expects them: every month or so, someone representing one international real estate investment firm or another crosses the threshold of the Parkdale Intercultural Centre, a non-profit immigrant settlement agency he runs on a busy stretch of Toronto´s Queen Street West.`It´s the same every time: Who owns the building? How do I get in touch with them? Do they want to sell?` shrugged Nguyen, whose centre has been helping new immigrants adjust to Canadian life for decades. `We´re fortunate - the owner believes in what we do, so we feel safe. But you know the same questions are being asked of everyone all around here. And not everyone is going to say no.`It´s not going to be Little Tibet much longer. We´re losing the community we built over yearsHomogenous, predictable, corporate and maybe even securitized - that certainly seems like the fate of TorontoIt had that feeling: `There´s nothing here, so let´s just make it into whatever we want`It´s not `how do we stop it`. It´s `how do we capture some of the benefits of the changes for people who live here now?` Related: Blind spots: a story about displacement in Berlin - a cartoon Continue reading...